"My Darling,
"At last I have got my leave, and am coming home to be married. Our months of waiting are over. I leave here to-morrow afternoon, shall spend the night on the way somewhere, and shall arrive in London late on the 15th, or during the morning of the 16th. I must spend the day in town to do a little shopping (I couldn't be seen at my own wedding very well in the clothes I have on now) and expect to get down to Silton at 3.20 on the 17th. I have to be back in this hole on the 24th, so that if we get married on Saturday we shall have quite a nice little honeymoon. Darling little one! Isn't it too good to be true? I can hardly realise that within a week I shall be
"Your devoted and hen-pecked husband
Ronald."
"P.S.—I have written to father, and he will make all arrangements for Saturday.
"P.P.S.—Shall I be allowed to smoke in the drawing-room?"
Margery Debenham leant out of the window and gazed at the garden and the orchard beyond. The light flickered through the trees of the old flagged path along which she and Ronald had so often wandered, and she could just see the tall grass waving down at the bottom of the orchard, where they used to sit and discuss the future. Everything reminded her of her lover who was coming back to her, who would be with her again to-morrow afternoon. At the thought of the five long, weary months of waiting that were passed, and of the eight days of happiness that were coming, two little tears crept out of her eyes and down her cheeks. She brushed them impatiently away, for she was too busy to cry. She must run and tell her parents; she must hurry over to talk to Ronald's father; she must write to her friends; she must run down to the bottom of the orchard and watch for a while the trout that lay in the little stream; she must laugh and sing until the whole village of Silton knew that her waiting was over, and that Ronald was in England again.
Captain Ronald Carr hoisted his pack on his shoulder, and turned to three officers who were looking at him enviously. "Cheer oh, you fellows," he said, "think of me in two days' time, while you are being 'strafed' by the Hun, rushing about town in a taxi," and, with a wave of his hand, he marched off to battalion headquarters, followed by Butler, his servant. From battalion headquarters he had a distance of two miles to walk to the cross roads where he was to meet his groom with his horse, but the day was hot and progress was rather slow. His first quarter of a mile was along a narrow and winding communicating trench; after that the way was along a hidden road, but huge shell craters all along told that the German artillery had it well marked.